


From End to Beginning

by lalakate



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Family, Lost Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-11 01:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13513905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalakate/pseuds/lalakate
Summary: A summer romance tucked away in the past has repercussions that make themselves felt twenty-one years later





	1. Chapter 1

She'd been seventeen that summer. '

She could blame the beach house they'd inherited from a spinster aunt, she supposes, a "dilapidated wreck" her mother had called it with its floor boards that creaked, blue weather-beaten shutters and a wraparound deck with several planks missing. A stray cat had made its home in one of those gaps, one she'd sneaked food out to when her mother went into town and dared to leave her alone, one she'd named Luna for her silver-gray coat that reminded her of the moon, one she'd missed when they'd had to leave as summer began its inevitable slow-fade into autumn.

To this day, she greets fall's approach with a measure of regret.

It's been an inevitable submersion for over half of her life. But that summer, Regina had found the cabin magical, far more enchanting than the condominiums they'd stayed in on past vacations, and she couldn't help but wonder about the history of the place—how long it had been standing, why had it been built in the first place, what stories it had witnessed as people strolled leisurely by on its uncrowded beach, murmuring into sand and surf, holding on to the pull of the ocean even as she had the month that had changed her life forever. She'd never forgotten the sensation of silken sand sliding between her toes, absorbing her atom by atom into the spray and the surf until she felt one with her surroundings, of being caressed with the lure of salt-water and cresting waves, of falling into a world in which she both lost and found a part of herself.

Yes—she could blame the house. It would be easy, a convenient scapegoat that did not possess the ability to dispute her or protest its innocence in the matter. But innocence was something she'd given away, a mistake that had marked her for twenty-one years, the magic of the beach house transforming into a pain so acute she would never be able to shake it. It was impossible. This she knew from years of trial and error.

Yet here she is, back at the cabin, noting the new coat of paint and repaired shingles, and she can't help but smile at its appearance, feeling as if they somehow understand each other. She—older, beaten down but still standing, forever destined to return to this spot no matter how far she tries to flee from it, made up and relatively successful to the naked eye, but still creaky and filled with gaps underneath. Perhaps there are mice in its foundation, she muses, skittering about with the same insistence as her own fragments of self-retribution and what-ifs. She hears wood creak as wind rushes past, billowing her skirt ahead of her, pulling her towards the sea already, inevitably towards her past, towards a future she can't begin to predict, towards lost dreams and self-forgiveness she's put off far too long.

It's time, she tells herself yet again. And here she stands.

The key presses into her palm as her hair flaps in the wind, shorter than it had been the summer that had changed everything, but longer than she's worn it in years. Was there a reason for this, she asks herself as she faces the ocean head-on.

Where is he now, she wonders?

He, the boy who had enchanted her with his smile and easy laughter, who had hung on to her every word as if what she had to say was actually worth hearing, who had unleashed a million butterflies in her stomach when he'd held her hand under the moonlight one night as they'd sat at the mouth of a small cave they'd claimed as their own. He, who had shot her over the moon when his lips first touched hers, making her marvel at the possibilities opening up in front of her, at the rightness of what they were doing, at the wonder of what his kiss could do to her. He, whom she had loved and never gotten over, the boy who would now be a man, the man who had probably forgotten her even as he would a spectacular sunset, their time together nothing more than a warm memory faded into a new day as easily as air passing in and out of his lungs. But he'd made it impossible for her to forget him. Unknowingly, he'd marked her for eternity, a part of him always etched in her body, the cavern he left behind far larger than the one in which they'd given each other their virginity as the sea crested and cried out alongside them.

If she closes her eyes, he's just there. He'll always be there.

She moves towards the cabin, shaking off the image of his eighteen year old self, that is until she spies the deck on which he'd worked alongside his uncle, helping with repairs and paint jobs up and down the coastline as he'd tried to put away money so he could transfer from a local community college to a nearby university.

"I want a degree," he'd told her as she'd burrowed into his side one evening, lost to everyone and everything but each other when the world was as young as they had been. "I want to get a job and make enough money so my mother won't have to keep cleaning houses for the rest of her life."

"There's nothing wrong with cleaning houses," she'd told him, and he'd kissed her on the tip of her nose as he was inclined to do.

"No," he'd agreed. "But you've never had to do it. My mum deserves better."

She'd never questioned his motives again.

So he'd moved in with his uncle and become his apprentice in carpentry, all well and good, he'd said, but he wanted more. A degree. His own business. A means of taking care of himself and his immigrant mother who'd come to America from Ireland after his father had been killed in a factory five years ago.

And a means of dating her in the manner she deserved.

He'd never felt worthy of her, something she hadn't been able to put together in her mind. Her family had money—yes—her father being a self-made man her mother had latched on to as a young woman, a human means of dragging her from the dredges of her blue-collar family with whom Regina had had very little contact for most of her life. But she'd always been ordinary—just Regina, nothing special, a fact her mother had reminded her of all too often, a girl who squandered her own potential, who couldn't appreciate all she'd been given and would end up throwing her life away just as so many ordinary girls did on a daily basis. Sadly, she'd believed that for almost forty years. It had been burned into her cells and every living memory she possessed. The one person who'd dared to tell her otherwise had vanished from her life just as she'd been learning to truly live.

 _Sunrise, sunset_ , she thought to herself as a gull streaked by overhead, its mournful cry sending a shiver down the back of her legs. He'd been proud and somewhat awe-struck that she'd been accepted to Vassar, a fact which she'd just accepted and her mother had down-played, but one that he'd celebrated with fresh shrimp he'd caught that afternoon and cooked over an open fire, served with fresh greens, blueberries and some cokes he'd put on ice. She'd burned her tongue on his catch, and he'd kissed her to quench the pain, a kiss that had led to more than she'd ever dared to dream about, one that had left her breathless in more ways than one as he touched her breasts for the first time in wonder, his caress leaving her breathless and aching in ways that were both frightening and beautiful. It was still the most spectacular meal she'd ever eaten in her life.

They'd been together more than once after that, becoming addicted to each other as quickly as water soaks into sand, and she'd never regretted their decision to be together, knowing his touch was the purest she'd ever felt and would ever feel again. They'd been inexperienced yet trustful, learning and discovering with the belief that this was forever, that life would inevitably pull them together just as the tide seeks the coast, one unmoving, the other unable to rest, both a part of the other, intertwined, connected, forever changed and changing with the passing of each season. Then he'd given her his child.

Her heart clenches down as pain creeps into memory. She moves away from the house, needing the sea and its enormity rather than walls and human structure. Her furniture arrived yesterday and should be where she'd instructed it to be placed, and she's thankful for her skills as an interior designer, the details and sketches she'd provided to the movers more than adequate for anyone with a I.Q. higher than 85 to make out. But she can't go inside, not yet, for to do so means that her new life begins, a life away from New York and cooperate complications traded for an existence of chance and fairytales at a seaside cottage she'd inherited from her parents, the very one her mother had wanted to sell, the one she'd pleaded with her father to keep. He'd willed it to her just before he had died. Then her mother had passed three years later. From that moment on, it was inevitable that she'd come back.

She had more than adequate means to start over between her inheritance and what she'd earned when she'd sold her business and walked away from the life she'd so carefully crafted over the past twenty years, a legacy fading into sand and memory in the blink of an eye. But what to do with what she's chosen, she asks herself yet again, the few bags she'd packed personally into her car containing nothing but pieces of manuscripts she'd toyed with for years alongside one photo album she clings to with the passion of a lost child. For the child in that album is lost to her. He has been since his third day of life.

And it still hurts like hell.

He'd never known about their baby—she didn't realize what had happened until she'd been at Vassar for over a month and her body began to rebel. The slow discovery had been the most terrifying period of her life, and she'd cried for two months after her mother sent her quickly to an aunt she'd met only twice to live in New York, a place where a pregnant teenager was nothing to make note of in the city's unending bustle. She'd called him once, but the number had been disconnected, her letters sent back and marked impersonally "No longer at this address". That was when hope had begun to dwindle as her waistline continued to grow.

She couldn't find him, and what would they do if she did?

A seventeen and eighteen year old with no degrees or family support, with no skills or careers on which to craft a life for themselves, much less to care for a helpless baby conceived through no fault of its own? Reality was a cold task-master, she'd discovered those lonely months as the sensations of another human being moving inside of her became more than she could adequately process under the circumstances in which she was forced to dwell. She'd given away what hope she had left when she'd given away their son. But it was time to reclaim her life. It was past time, actually. She's certain he's reclaimed his by now, and she can only pray their son has done the same.

What does he look like, she wonders yet again? Dark headed? Blue or brown eyes? Does he have his father's dimples or her thick, wavy hair? She's traced pictures of him in her mind since the last time she held him, memorizing the shape of his nose, the fairness of his skin, the way his mouth puckered just so, the feel of his tiny hand wrapped around her finger. If she doesn't stop now, she'll cry again, and today isn't a day for tears, she tells reminds herself. It's a day to start over, a day to baptize herself in the waters of rebirth and renewal and embrace the life she has yet to live with the same abandon in which she'd embraced her first lover all those years ago. There had been change of address forms, the need to filter question after question of what was possessing her to do such a thing when she had nothing to run to and every reason to stay. But her mind had fixed on this course after an unexpected surgery that left her even emptier than she'd been after giving birth. She needed to go back to the beginning of where her life both began and unraveled, and here she stood by the same sea that had helped to implant life in her body, a life that now existed separately from her and the man still oblivious to its existence.

Stretch marks had faded, stitches had healed, but her womb had never recovered from the child who had grown there, a living and breathing reminder of a summer she could almost otherwise dismiss as a dream. She stands by the shore, allowing the waves to lick at her bare feet as her sandals dangle from her fingers. Her head is tossed back, her dress blowing in a mad sort of frenzy, and she almost feels like a water spirit—ageless and without form, mirroring foam floating on top of the sea. She loses herself in the sound of the waves, allowing her mind to go blank and her body to simply feel as her current and seventeen year old selves crash together in a crest of salt and spray.

 _This is who I am_ , she thinks, _who I've become_. A tentative peace prickles her skin as the edge of her dress gets wet. It is time.

She turns back to the cabin, ready to take baby steps into the unknown, and she opens her eyes to her new reality, shocked to see she is no longer alone. There is a figure standing just by her door—a man, a lanky man, one whose stance takes her back to their cave and renders her breathless. It can't be, she assures herself, knowing there is no reason he should be back her right now, standing by the cabin, looking at the shudders as if they possess the very magic she always suspected they did. She takes a few cautious steps forward, her heart pounding in time with the surf, wondering oddly enough if her mind is playing tricks on her, if her memory has conjured an image she'll never forget, for he is young, she notices, the man standing in front of her house, just as he'd been and would no longer be.

"May I help you?"

The man turns towards the sound of her voice looking as nervous as she feels, then he smiles at her, a disarming smile that is too familiar for her comfort. He takes three steps towards her and stares as if she were the person out of place here, and she wonders for a moment if he'd been staying in the cabin illegally while it had been deserted, if somehow she'd kicked him out of a home that he thought should be his.

"Regina Mills?" he asks, and she hesitates before nodding, now thinking perhaps he was one of the painters she'd hired from her apartment in New York when she'd decided to relocate. Then he laughs, no—chuckles, and he runs his fingers through a mop of brown hair, biting his lower lip in a manner that makes her heart stand still. She sees what remains of childhood freckles, and she thinks he must have been a cute boy, a boy who is now watching her too closely for someone she's never met.

"Do I know you?" she questions, remaining rooted to her spot, thinking that perhaps her passing thoughts about getting a dog were more intelligent than she'd originally judged them to be.

"No," the young man answers, shoving his hands even deeper into his pockets. "You don't. But you will."

"I don't understand," she begins, her mouth going dry as something begins to pound against her skull. He is familiar yet foreign, and her mind is spinning as her feet go numb, reality crashing in on her from all directions at once before she has time to prepare herself.

"My name is Henry," he states, tugging out one hand and extending it decisively in her direction. "And I'm your son."


	2. Chapter 2

The surf crashes behind her as she stares into her past, a past now taller than she is with a grin that both hurts and soothes. It can't be—but it is. And his hand now reaches out to her—a lifeline or a mockery, she can't decide—but she possesses neither the power nor the will to turn away from him. So she stands there, gazing at this boy, this man, her son, as salt from the air continues to coat her lungs and her throat.

"Henry."

It's all she can manage as her mind withdraws with the tide.

"Regina."

His voice is gentle, and he looks at her as if she's a figment of his imagination now living and breathing in front of his eyes. She wants to touch him, to feel him, to see if he's real, if he's genuine, if he's made of flesh and bone rather than sand and sea. Fingers itch as they extend in his direction, and he lets her take his hand, unleashing a tidal wave of emotion that sweeps her off her feet.

"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to take you by surprise, but..." He pauses as the wind claims his hair for a dance. "I wanted to meet you."

He wanted to meet her. Her son. The child she gave away. The baby who branded every atom and cell in her body, the boy who is now a man, one who is taller than she, one who has already lived a lifetime out of her reach…he wants to meet her.

"Why?"

She can't feel her legs.

"Because you're my mom," he states with a shrug, as if it's that simple, which she supposes it is. It's the most simple and complicated fact of her life. He bites his lower lip again, and in that moment she sees his father, the man whose image time has had no power to alter. "I was curious about what you were like, how you looked…"

He pauses abruptly, and she somehow hears the words stuck inside of him, words she'd pressed into him when he was only a few days old.

"If I ever regretted giving you up?"

His eyes find hers again, and she wonders how she missed the myriad of colors swirling in shades of brown. Hues of storm clouds and surf blending with sand and sky, colors painting a perfect canvas of the changing tides of his life.

"Did you?"

His question is nearly lost in a gull's cry, tugged towards the ocean by a pull she knows too well. Her throat is desert dry even though her skirt and eyes are damp, and she wonders if this is what quicksand feels like, an odd plaster of drought and moisture that engulfs you before you even know you're lost.

"Every day," she answers, hoping her words reach his ears. "Every god damned day."

Her legs are shaking. She's frankly amazed that they haven't buckled beneath her.

"I just wondered."

He's so tall, she thinks, taller than either she or his father, but she remembers Robin telling her how he was the runt of his family, the one always on the receiving end of short jokes from his cousins. She'd laughed at his admission, had punched him lightly in the shoulder just before he'd pulled her into his chest for another kiss, another touch, another forbidden, stolen moment that would change the course of her life.

"I would have wondered, too."

He's nodding, his hands sliding into his pockets, dragging her past self closer to the surface with each mannerism that manifests itself. He's so like his father in ways she can see but not define. Yet he's different, a blend of genetics and an upbringing he wears as a second skin that makes him as foreign as he is familiar.

"How did you…"

Her voice trails off again, as if her words are being carried out by the surf before they have a chance to be heard.

"Find you?"

She nods as he grins again, the way he shrugs his shoulders so like Robin she can hardly breathe.

"It wasn't hard. You chose to leave the adoption records open, so I took it from there. My parents never kept my adoption a secret. They were very open about it with me once they thought I was old enough to understand."

Parents. The word strikes her in a private place she'd tried to bury the moment he'd been taken from her arms. God, it burns, it singes in a way it has no right to do. She'd wanted him to have good parents, had prayed nightly into hollow silence that he'd been adopted by a couple who would love him as much as she did but could give him what she could not.

"That's good," she says, the words tumbling off of her tongue in an automated fashion, more like a recording than a true response. "I guess." She shifts, rubbing her lips together, not sure which words should be spoken and which left unsaid. Her mind is paralyzed yet darting in one hundred directions at once. "I'm sorry. I'm just…"

"In shock?"

She nods, wanting to touch him again, fighting competing urges to run screaming down the beach and to wrap her arms around him and never let go.

"Yeah, I know," he continues with another shrug. "So am I." He stops then, misreading her expression. "I have identification if you want it. My birth certificate, photographs, certificate of adoption…"

"That's not necessary," she cuts in. "I believe you. You remind me too much of…"

She bites her lower lip, watching as he leans in closer and studies her expression.

"My father?"

She nods, staring back into the pounding surf, allowing the wind to cool her cheeks.

"What's his name? Am I allowed to ask?"

She laughs, the sound harsh, the taste heady and sweet as images of Robin flood her memory. The streaks of blonde that feathered through his hair, the pink hue of his cheeks, the sunkissed bronze of his chest and arms, the blonde scruff dotting his jawline. How she'd floated on air when he smiled at her, how she'd forgotten how to breathe when he'd first held her hand, how she'd melted into him when he'd whispered her name just before they kissed for the first time.

"Robin," she utters. "His name was Robin."

How odd that simply voicing two syllables can make her feel as if she's summoning a ghost, and the breeze chooses that moment to race up her legs and make her tingle. She feels the need to look over her shoulder, to see if he's somehow standing by the house, waiting on her to look him in the eye and explain just how in God's name she'd given up their child a lifetime ago, a child he never knew existed.

"Do you know how to find him? I'd like to meet him, too, if...if that's possible."

Her head shakes before she can think of the right words, her heart seizing in an all too familiar vice.

"If I'd been able to find him when I found out that I was pregnant, I may never have given you away," she answers, blinking rapidly as her throat thickens. "He doesn't know-he never knew-and I have no idea…"

A tear breaks free then, one just as hot as the ones she'd shed when she'd signed the papers that severed her claims to her own flesh and blood. She inhales deeply, needing the salt to dry up her insides, her lips trembling so relentlessly that further speech becomes impossible. She wipes at her cheek frantically, feeling a broken Oh, God, I'm sorry tumble over her lips as her insides threaten to give way.

He touches her then, practically holds her upright as streams of tears bottled up for decades push forward, spilling over the dam she's spent a lifetime trying to build. She looks at her feet, at the sand, at a horizon now smaller than it seemed just moments ago as her chest caves in and her nose begins to run.

"You did a good thing, you know-giving me up like you did. I know it couldn't have been easy."

There's something freeing in his words, yet she can't quite grasp them long enough to let them ease into her consciousness. They dangle just beyond her grasp, words of absolution and reassurance from the one person whose opinion truly matters.

"It nearly killed me," she admits, wiping her face with her palm. "I knew things would be tough for us if I kept you, I thought I was doing the right thing, but...but it hurt like nothing I've ever experienced in my life."

"I understand," he says, and she shakes her head, knowing there's no way he truly can understand what would prompt a mother to give away her child, hoping beyond hope he never faces such desperation as long as he lives.

"So they're...they're good to you? Your parents?"

The word leaves an aftertaste on her tongue, but it's surprisingly not bitter. He smiles broadly at her question, nodding his head as his own eyes lower.

"They were the best."

The word doesn't go unnoticed by her.

"Were?" She swallows hard, her heart clenching before she can reason out the cause.

"They died a year ago-a boating accident."

He pauses, his cheek twitching, clearly revealing the depth of his pain. It hurts her, to see him like this, grieving the parents who'd chosen him and raised him in her stead. Both parents had died on the same day-it's unfair, he shouldn't have had to bear such a loss, not him, not her son. She touches his arm, and he lets her, his skin oddly warm in the ocean breeze.

"You were close to them?"

Her question sounds hollow to her own ears, but he nods, sniffing just as she is, his own lips trembling now.

"We were very close. I miss them a lot." He looks back at her, pushing his hands further into his pockets. "I think you would have liked them."

Her tongue feels two sizes too large for her own mouth, her throat too thick for coherent speech..

"I'm sure I would have," she manages, clearing her throat just as Henry does the same. "If they loved you, then I know they were good people."

He smiles, and she tries to summon an image of the man and woman he'd known as mom and dad, the people who'd rocked him to sleep and watched him take his first steps. They'd lived the life she'd given away, one wrapped in baby blue with eyes the color of an oyster shell. They stand there in silence, she and Henry, gazing at each other, taking up a dance of seconds that spans an entire lifetime of questions, the sounds of the sea their only accompaniment.

"I'm sorry you lost them."

"So am I."

She looks towards the beach house before turning back to her son, suddenly wishing time could stand still long enough for the two of them to become properly acquainted. She knows nothing of being a mother, has craved being one for years, has imagined holding another child in the manner she'd held the one staring down at her now. But life hadn't seen fit to give her another child, her own body telling her that she was somehow unworthy of a second chance when her uterus rebelled and a hysterectomy was required.

Her body has since recovered. Her soul never has.

Yet he was here-her son, standing beside her, on the very beach where he'd been conceived in the vivid, bright colors of young love. Maybe her second chance was simply late in arriving, even if came knotted up in a myriad of emotions and a lifetime of regret.

"Would you like to come inside?"

He nods before he speaks, his smile returning, and she's lost then, lost to this man to whom she'd given life, lost to the boy who'd defined who she'd become even though he'd been physically absent from her world since he was three days old.

"Yeah," he answers, releasing the tightness in her rib cage a notch or two, allowing her to breathe freely for the first time in years. "I'd like that very much."

He then reaches out, bridging the space between them, offering her his hand, offering her redemption. She takes it without hesitation, wanting to hold on to him for the rest of her life as they turn and walk towards the house, into a shared past still a mystery to them both.


	3. Chapter 3

"So you're studying journalism?"

He nods as he takes another bite of Kung Pao Chicken, his ease with using chopsticks warming a private nook inside of her. Robin had always teased her about her insistence on using appropriate utensils when eating Asian food, and she'd been just as relentless in teaching him how to use them properly, although the battle to do so had been hard fought and had ended with him tickling her mercilessly.

"What made you choose that field?" she asks, barely tasting her shrimp with garlic sauce as she watches him eat. It's still so foreign to her that he's here-her son, her child, one she never thought she'd see again who now sits across the table from her eating Chinese take-out. She's still half-terrified she'll wake up and find herself standing alone on the beach, or even worse that she'll be back in her aunt's apartment in New York, hollow, childless, and still sore from the ordeal of giving birth.

"I've always liked to write," he answers with a slight shrug that blatantly mimics the man who fathered him. "I used to interview everybody I knew-my friends, my teachers-and I'd type up their stories and print out my own newsletter. I'd put them in our neighbor's mailboxes, hand them out after school…" He pauses, looking up to find her staring at him as if he's a priceless artifact that's just been unearthed. "I even walked to the mayor's office once and handed one to him." He sighs then, shaking his head. "He told me that he admired my initiative and suggested I give my newsletter a name. So I did."

"What did you call it?" She wants to know everything about him, not just the name of his newsletter, but every mundane detail. How many freckles he has, if he shares her allergy to ragweed, the name of his favorite cartoon character, whether or not he ever suffers from the pesky insomnia that she's dealt with her entire life.

"The Storyteller's Gazette," he answers, his ears and cheeks reddening in embarrassment. "I know it's kind of corny…"

"No," she interrupts. "It's perfect."

Her hand is on his arm somehow, and she withdraws it, still uncertain of new boundaries, not wanting to upset this newly born alliance with the one person left in this world who shares her DNA.

"My dad would always take a stack of them to his office," Henry states, popping another piece of chicken into his mouth. "He'd come home empty handed and would announce that his colleagues couldn't wait to read my work, that they were astounded by my brilliance and my aptitude at writing. It didn't take me too long to figure out that he had a knack for spinning one whale of a tale." She smiles at this, at the ease with which he speaks of his parents, at the love they obviously showered on him. It's a love she understands, one she's held inside herself for so long that it half-frightens her, a love now fighting the very constraints she's painstakingly constructed around it to keep herself sane.

"Was your dad a writer?" He sets down his paper carton, taking a drink of water while shaking his head.

"Hardly," he answers. "A reader, yes, a lover of the classics, actually, but writing wasn't his thing. He'd always complain about it when he'd have to submit an article to his department chair." He pauses to clear his throat. "He was a history professor who specialized in ancient cultures, especially the Greeks and Romans, and his hobby was archaeology. Rather ironic seeing that his name was Dr. Jones." He smiles at the memory, and she watches as he wades through the tidal pools of childhood impressions.

"I'm sure nobody ever teased him about that," she says, fiddling with her chopsticks as he chuckles into his napkin.

"Constantly," he grins. "If I had a penny for every time someone called him Indiana…" He cuts himself off, blinking back the pain of loss, a pain she recognizes all too well. His inhale is audible, strained, but he clears his throat and looks her in the eye, seeming to clasp on to what he sees there. "He and my mom saved up for years to take us all on a month long trip to Greece and Italy after I graduated from high school. We went all over Athens and Rome, toured Santorini and Mycenae, visited Pompeii."

"That sounds amazing," she says, popping another shrimp into her mouth thoughtlessly. Her heart squeezes, pain tinged with happiness at the life his adoptive parents had been able to give him, a life she knows would have never been within her means had she kept him as an eighteen year old unwed mother. The only place she could have taken him would have been to the local park. "I've always wanted to go to Italy."

"It was great," he returns. "But don't go in July. It's hot." She grins back at him, suppressing the need to touch him again, to make certain he's real.

"And your mom? What did she do?" A wistfulness comes over him, sneaking into the room as gently as the morning mist. "She was a social worker," he answers. "Worked primarily within the foster care system." Her ribs constrict, making it difficult to breath as she breathes a prayer of thanks that Henry had never been placed into a system so understaffed and overcrowded. "She always said it was her personal mission to help every child on her caseload find their happy ending." Her hands clasp her water glass, her throat suddenly dry, and she takes a large sip, nearly choking on it as it vies with emotion within the confines of her throat.

"She sounds like an amazing woman." The words pass over her lips without feeling, yet they are genuine.

"She was," he says, his brows creasing. "Like I said earlier-you did a good thing when you let them adopt me. I couldn't have had a better home life." She's nodding, swallowing, reminding herself to breathe, biting back emotion that threatens to choke her as a lone tear breaks free.

"I'm glad," she manages, wiping her cheek. "That's all I ever wanted for you-a good home, a good life, parents who…" She breaks off, using her napkin now rather than her hand to dry her face. "Parents who loved you." She nearly jumps when his hand tentatively covers her own, and she closes her eyes, memorizing its shape, its feel, its warmth. It feels just like his father's.

"They did love me," he assures her. "You don't have to wonder about that anymore." A dam inside her breaks at his words, and years of emotion pour out of her yet again, tears she could no more contain than she could the incoming tide. She inhales sharply, blinking until her vision is clear. "It's nice to know that you loved me, too."

Her eyes lock on to his, and she dares to extend her free hand to his cheek. His skin is smooth, dotted with traces of stubble she assumes are brown, and she smiles through her tears, nodding as her thumb traces the contours of his face.

"More than my own life," she breathes. "And I always will."

They sit in silence as daylight melts into the horizon, painting the sky in hues of amber and ocher, until the blues and blacks of night become dominant once more. They're still touching, still learning, still taking each other in, and Regina finds she's afraid to move, afraid of breaking this spell wound about them with a fragile delicacy.

"Can I ask you some questions?" His voice is gentle, and she straightens back into her seat.

"Of course," she replies with a shrug. "What do you want to know?"

"I know you sold your business and your apartment," he states, her brows creasing at his words. "I researched you before I tracked you down," he admits with a shrug. "To make sure that meeting you was a good idea."

"Smart," she says with a nod that encourages him to continue.

"So my question is, why? Why pull up stakes and move here from the city? Why sell what you worked so hard to build to come here? To this cabin? On this beach?" Her reasons nearly suck her under as she rubs the rim of her glass, sighing as she works to give logic to raw emotion.

"I needed a change," she says, watching doubt cloud his features. "At least, that's the short answer."

"And the long answer?" One hand falls to her stomach, it's hollowness morphing into a physical ache.

"I had to have a hysterectomy," she returns, her eyes dropping to her uneaten steamed rice. "A few months ago. That was hard, knowing that I could never conceive another child, knowing that I'd given away the only child I'd ever carry inside me…" She stops and raises her eyes back to his, her tone raw and uneven. "Everything just felt so empty, like I was just spinning my wheels day in and day out, and for what? Yes, I built my design business, and I worked damned hard doing it, but it's never what I dreamed of doing, never fulfilled me in the way that I'd hoped a career would do. At the end of the day, I went home to an empty apartment and let myself wonder how it would feel to do something else."

He leans back and studies her, pressing his lips together before raising a brow in her direction.

"And what would you do if you could do it all again?" he asks. "What's your dream, Mom?"

_Mom._

The title still sounds foreign, yet she wants it to fit. She breathes it in, lets it envelope her, remembering countless nights she stared up at her ceiling wondering how it would feel to hear her son call her that very thing. It was somehow more magical and less surreal in her imagination, but she won't waste time in comparing what wasn't with what is.

"To be a writer," she answers, watching as his brows draw together in surprise. "You're not the only one who likes to play with words." His face breaks into a smile that melts her, and she knows she'll do anything to make him smile like that again. She only prays he'll stick around long enough so she can.

"What do you write?" he asks.

"A little bit of everything," she admits as her ears begin to burn. "Fiction, mainly. Stories about hope, healing, forgiveness." He bites his lower lip again, making her heart ache in the spot Robin claimed all those years ago.

"Things you know about personally?" he asks, smiling as she nods her head.

"Things I'm still living," she states. "Still seeking in some ways." His gaze drops to the floor before moving back to her.

"I'd like to read them sometime," he says, smiling at the expression of absolute shock staring back at him. "If you'll let me, that is."

"Yes," she stammers. "Sure, if you really want to."

"Why are you so surprised that I'd want to?" he questions. "You're my mom. It might help me get to know you better."

Her throat constricts, making it difficult to swallow.

"Because the only person who ever took the time to read my writing and encourage me in it was...was your father." He looks sad and confused.

"Not your parents?"

Her scoff is harsh.

"Never my parents," she says. "I could never please my mother, no matter what I did, and my father...well, he went along with her to keep the peace."

"So nobody stood up for you?" Henry asks, making her pulse skip a beat. She shakes her head and shrugs.

"Not really. So I learned to stand up for myself." They gaze at each other in silence, a gull's cry the only sound to be heard. "They're not finished, you know," she states, trying to steer the conversation away from her mother. "My stories. Not yet. Some of them are in outline form, some just partially complete. You may want to wait until..."

"I get it," he grins, and she exhales through her nose, laughing at her own nervousness. "And it's alright. I'll read whatever you're comfortable letting me read, whenever you're comfortable letting me read it." She realizes her hands have balled into fists, so she relaxes them, running her fingers over her scalp, feeling a fresh rush of nerves skitter over her spine. "I'm proud of you-for doing this, for taking a chance to do what you love. That's great, it really is, and it shows that you have a lot of courage."

She can't look at him then, remembering nights she hugged herself in fear as her stomach grew and her options shrank.

"I'm no hero, Henry," she states. "And I'm not that brave. Trust me." He leans forward over the table, his gaze recapturing hers.

"I don't believe that," he says. "Only an incredibly brave woman could have given up her baby to give him his best chance." She's shaking her head, stubbornly pressing back tears that press back hard.

"I was terrified," she confesses. "Young, alone, uneducated and totally unprepared to be a mother. There was nothing brave about what I did. I gave you away so the two of us could survive." She stares out the window, at the sea, and she wants to run outside and feel the surf on her feet, to let it wash away what hurts and carry it far past the horizon.

"You're wrong," Henry states, reaching out for her hand again, bringing her back to reality. "Everything about what you did is brave." She has no response, so they sit in silence once again, one that is at once both comforting and weighted to the point of pain. "My dad," he finally says, prompting her to suck air into her lungs. "Robin. Did you love him?"

She lets herself ease into a smile as she always does when she sees him in her mind, all blonde, tan and handsome, those dimples, those eyes, they way he'd touched her in places no one ever had, the way he treated her as if she'd been the queen of his world.

"I did," she says. "As much as a seventeen year old is capable of loving." He watches her, his eyes narrowing at her words.

"Have you ever loved anyone else?"

She remembers the taste of salt in young kisses, the feel of sea air caressing bare thighs, the vows spoken in secret they'd meant to recite officially when they were older and could support themselves. No one in her life has ever touched her as he had, has ever seen her for who she really is and wants to be, has ever accepted every facet of her without picking out every flaw.

"No," she answers. "Not like I loved him."

"What was he like?" His question caresses memories long buried in the sand, precious treasures she'd kept hidden, even from herself.

"Kind," she says, her legs following her gaze towards the window and the ocean. "Gentle. Intelligent. Level-headed. A hard-worker, someone with dreams, a man who took care of his mother and wanted to give her the world." She hears him stand and push his chair back into the table, feels his steps as he moves to stand beside her. "You have a lot of his mannerisms," she continues. "The way you stand, how you cock your head to one side when you're about to say something, the way you like to bite your lower lip." He does just that out of reflex then laughs at himself.

"Do I look like him?"

She's nodding before she speaks, and she reaches out to stroke a lock of hair that's fallen into his eyes.

"Somewhat," she answers. "I think you look a bit like both of us, really."

He shifts his stance, staring out the window as he tries to take it all in. He's discovering his biology, and she wonders how that must feel, to never know why he'd been given away, to ponder what family traits he bore and what health issues he'd inherited.

"Did he love you?"

The question pools at her feet, and it's a question she's asked herself at least a million times over the course of the past two decades. He'd told her he did, had touched her as if he did, had made love to her until she thought her heart might explode from the beauty and intensity of it.

"I think so," she answers, lifting her shoulders towards her ears. "We promised to marry each other one night after we…" she pauses, chiding herself over unnecessary modesty. Henry knows how babies are made. "After we made love. He even gave me a ring, told me that after he finished college he'd build me a house, one right on the beach so I could enjoy the ocean as much as I wanted." She extends her right hand in his direction, showing him a plain gold band studded with a smooth green gemstone, one she'd never removed from her right ring finger. "It was his grandmother's," she states in answer to his unspoken question. He touches the ring, rubbing its surface, his face softening as he studies it.

"He gave you this," he utters. "But he left you?" She shakes her head.

"It was more like we lost each other," she explains. "When summer was over, I had to go home." He quirks his head just so, and she smiles, gazing out at white foam beginning to sparkle under the moon's encouragement. "We met here, your father and I, on this very beach when I was staying in this house for a month with my parents. He was eighteen, I was seventeen. We thought we had forever, that life would just follow the path we dreamed that it would." She faces him, watching as understanding begins to take root, as he looks out at the sea with renewed wonder. "Yes, Henry. You were conceived on this beach, most likely in the cave just around that bend."

His eyes widen at this, and he turns to face her fully.

"Really?" he questions, blinking rapidly as she nods.

"I didn't realize I was pregnant until after I'd started my first and only semester at Vassar," she explains, her eyes dropping to the floor. "I wrote to him, to tell him about you, even though I don't have any idea what we could have done differently if he'd known. But all my letters came back unopened, marked that he no longer lived at that address. I wrote to his uncle who'd worked on our house that summer, but I never heard back from him, either. I tried everything I knew to find him, but nothing worked. After a while, I started to give up. I dropped out of school, was sent to live with an aunt I barely knew in New York City, and day by day, I watched my life fall apart." He reaches for her hand, his palm startlingly warm against her chilled fingers.

"I'm so sorry."

His words embrace her, and she nods again, wishing someone had held her and whispered those very words to her when she was going into labor, certain she was going to die.

"Don't be," she breathes. "You're the one good thing I've ever done, Henry. Even when I didn't know your name or what you looked like, I knew you were good." Her insides tremble as he squeezes her hand.

"The reason you came back here, to this beach, to this house...it was me? And him?" She breathes in and out, her answer no more than a ragged whisper that leaves her insides spent.

"Yes."

"Why?" he asks. Words fail her for a moment as her thoughts reshuffle themselves into some semblance of order.

"That summer here with Robin, when you were conceived, it was the only time my life made sense, the only time I was truly happy." She feels his inhale and wonders how pathetic her confession makes her appear.

"We could find him, you know. Robin." His words hit her like an unexpected wave, and she feels herself toppling forward into a realm she doesn't trust.

"Henry, I don't think that's such a good idea…"

"I'm good at finding people," he continues. "And I'm pretty skilled with a computer. If you'd tell me all you know about him…"

"I don't know much of anything," she protests. "It's been over twenty years."

"I'm sure we could locate him-find an address, an email address, a phone number-all I need is his last name and last known residence."

"Henry…"

"It may take a few days, but I'm on vacation from school, and…"

"Henry!" Her shout startles him, and she backs away from him in shame, moving as close to the window as she can, her breath fogging the glass. "You have every right to want to meet your father," she begins, swallowing hard. "And I don't blame you for it. It's only natural-only right. But it's been twenty-one years. He could be married, could have three or four children with another woman, and he-"

"Go ahead," he prompts as traitorous words lodge in her throat. "Say it. He may not want to know I exist." She closes her eyes to the pain she'd just caused, unable to look at him as he steps closer to her. "I wasn't sure you'd want to know me, either."

She spins around, unable to breathe, shaking her head as she cups his cheek instinctively.

"I've wanted to know you your entire life, Henry. Never doubt that."

Her words collapse as her legs give way, and he pulls her into an embrace, one she returns with every atom in her body. In her mind, he's always been a child-smaller than her, looking up to her, yet she's engulfed by him, this man-son of hers, this boy now grown who holds her with the same tenderness his father had a lifetime ago. She clasps on to him as seconds tick by, until she somehow knows he needs space. She releases him slowly as he smiles down at her, and she shakes her head, still trying to absorb all that has happened within the space of a few hours.

"I have something for you," she says, and he examines her quizzically as she moves towards her bedroom. "Wait here." She turns and strides into the darkness, switching on the lamp on her nightstand as she kneels and opens the briefcase she keeps with her at all times. Fingers brush over notebooks filled with her writing-notes, outlines, chapters and ideas-but she bypasses them all until she finds what she seeks. The journal is old, it's pages weathered, edges rounded, hardcover marked by soft indentations where she's clasped it to her chest more times than she can count. This book has been baptized by her tears, marked by raw emotion, and she smells it's worn glory as she rises to her feet.

It is the story of her life.

She swallows and gazes back into the main room, staring at the lanky form standing by the window, hands in pockets, head tilted to one side. He deserves this, she'd written it for him, but she's never shared these hidden words with anyone. They are her most intimate thoughts, feelings that practically bled out of her and spattered onto its pages. She summons the courage that Henry believes she has and walks slowly back in his direction, the journal pressed to her chest, her path direct and unfaltering. He turns to face her as she lowers the book and extends it in his direction, and she curses her trembling hands as he accepts it from her and opens the cover. A picture falls out, and he kneels to retrieve it before she can. She gasps, a tear spilling on to her cheek as she watches him study the yellowed edges of the only photograph she'd had of him, one taken by a well-meaning nurse when she'd held her baby for the first and only time. She wipes her eyes as he sheds a tear of his own, and he looks up at her, both of their eyes filling as lost years come crashing down around them.

"Me?" he asks, already knowing the answer, but she nods anyway, unable to speak as years of longing clog her throat. "God, you were...so young."

"I'd just turned eighteen," she whispers, watching as the truth of her situation sinks into his bones. His shoulders sag under the weight of what he sees, and he looks back at her, shaking his head.

"You were younger than I am now," he states. "I mean, you said you were seventeen when you got pregnant, but to see it…" He slides the picture back into the crease of the book with renewed reverence as he turns the page and reads aloud. "For my child," he utters.

She bows her head at words she'd written in her bedroom just after the first time she'd felt him move inside her womb. There had been no one to celebrate that moment with her, no one to touch her stomach and exclaim over the little life proclaiming his existence.

"You wrote this for me?"

She nods, clearing her throat twice.

"For both of us," she clarifies. "Writing to you helped me cope with what I had to do. I know it sounds strange, but-"

"No," he interrupts. "It doesn't sound strange at all." He pauses, exhaling through his nostrils as his face twitches. "I wrote to you, too." Her eyelids flutter in surprise. "After my parents told me that I'd been adopted," he continues. "I began to wonder about you, about my father, so I wrote letters to both of you that never got sent. I asked you questions, I told you about joining Cub Scouts, about helping my dad build a treehouse, about my first crush on a girl named Violet, about how I wanted a dog but couldn't get one because my mom was allergic." She touches his arm lightly, smiling as he chuckles and doesn't draw away. "I kept them all," he admits. "They're in a box I can get out later if...if you'd like to see them."

They stare into each other, both harboring questions as history and present forge a bond that nearly blinds them.

"I'd like that," she states. "Whenever you're ready to show them to me." He nods and looks down at the journal, and she suddenly needs air, her lungs and heart so full she can barely breathe. "I'm going to walk down to the shore," she says. "To stretch my legs a bit. Would you like to come with me?"

He stares out the window before shaking his head.

"I think I'd rather stay here," he returns. "And read this." He raises the journal in her direction, and she smiles, nervous about how he'll respond to her musings, certain he'll see past this hero facade he's created when he reads just how broken she's been most of her life.

"Alright," she says as she grabs a small quilt from the back of the rocking chair, wrapping it around her shoulders as she opens the door and allows the sea air to infiltrate the house. She somehow smells Robin, as if he is one with the sea, and she looks from the night sky back to Henry, wondering just how long she'll be able to balance two worlds. "I won't be long."

He nods as she exits, and she looks back once, watching as he sits on the sofa and opens the journal. She doesn't see him flip through the pages before settling in to read the first entry, doesn't notice when he finds an old letter trapped in the creases, one unopened and addressed to Robin Locksley, one marked _No Longer at this Address_ just as she'd told him. She doesn't know that he slides the letter into his pocket for future reference before he begins to read page one with trembling hands and heart. She has no idea that later that night, after she's asleep, that he opens his laptop in the bedroom she's given him and types in the name _Robin Locksley_ , that he discovers three possible matches within an hour, and that he zeroes in on one just as his bedside clock registers three a.m. She dreams as he composes an email, deleting at least five drafts before finally settling on one and pressing the _Send_ button with shaking hands.

And as she awakes with the sun and brews a fresh pot French Roast, she's clueless as to the fact that her life which has just been turned on its ear is about to embark on a new course that will leave her breathless and hanging on for dear life.

* * *

 

He smacks his alarm clock, cursing the earliness of the hour as he rolls himself out of bed and into the bathroom. His beard needs a trim, he realizes, and he rubs his chin as he makes his way into the kitchen, thankful for the timer on his coffee maker and for the strong scent of French Roast waiting for him, fresh, rich and hot. He pours himself a cup and sits down at his laptop to check his messages, wondering if John's wife has finally gone into labor or if his best foreman will still be on pins and needles at the Werther building site today. Yesterday, Robin had sent the man home, telling him he'd be of far more use to Amy than he was being to the crew, as distracted as he was.

Who can blame the man? His wife is already three days overdue, and she's carrying twins, a combination practically unheard of from what John tells him. Robin doesn't think he can take another afternoon of being told he should settle down already, that he'd be a great dad, that he's not getting any younger and that there are still a lot of great women out there, things John takes great delight in telling him now that he's on the verge of fatherhood himself. He's happy for his friend, he truly is. If anyone deserves happiness, it's John Little. But as for taking the man's advice, well, Robin turns a deaf ear and continues on as he does every day of his life.

Alone. Successful. And empty.

Sure, he's had his share of relationships over the years, but every attempt at commitment has left him feeling flat. One day he finally decided that life was far less complicated when women were simply left out of the equation, and its a decision he's rarely regretted. His career became his focus, his sole passion, and he built his business from the ground up, one that now takes care of both him and his mother quite well financially. Relationships are tricky, unpredictable, and he prefers order in his life, craves predictability as much as he does his morning coffee. Perhaps it's because his youth had been filled with upheaval and uncertainty, perhaps it's because he's seen firsthand the toll that dashed dreams has taken upon his mother's spirit. Whatever the reason, Robin Locksley lives alone.

By choice, he reminds himself yet again. He lives alone by choice.

There's only been one woman he's regretted, one woman who touched his heart on a level otherwise left undisturbed, one woman he'd loved enough to give a ring and a promise, a promise he'd meant to keep until life sucker-punched him in the gut and left him bereft and angry. She'd been a girl, technically, one on the cusp of womanhood, one he'd loved a lifetime ago in a reality that now seems more like a fairy tale. God, had they really been that young that summer-the one time in his history that life had actually made sense? The one time he'd felt truly happy?

He smiles as he does every time Regina crosses his thoughts, and he wonders again what she's doing now. He supposes she's married, probably a highly successful career woman with a degree from Vassar, one she'd earned with honors, of course. She's probably a mother of two or three school-aged children and a cat like the one she adeptly kept hidden from her mother at the beach. He thinks of her living in a big white house, wearing smart suits, strutting around in high heels, driving a Benz to work and her husband absolutely mad in the bedroom.

He stops there. He doesn't like thinking of Regina with another man. He never has.

He should have written her, he thinks for the millionth time, but life had gone so horribly wrong when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer just weeks after Regina and her family left the beach house, when he'd had to shelve his dreams of attending college in order to take on three jobs to help pay for her treatments, when they'd had to move in with a distant cousin because they couldn't afford their own rent any longer. What could he have offered Regina back then? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She'd always been way out of his league, and for him to have approached her with all the baggage that was his life, well, it would have been selfish. Totally and utterly selfish. So he'd let her go on to bigger and better things, protecting her from his screw-ups and the hardships both he and his mother had endured for several years. It had been the right thing to do-for both of them, he's certain of it. But the dull ache that accompanies her memory still throbs in his chest, along with the romanticized pulse of the sea.

His fingers rake over his scalp as he sighs and stares into his coffee, and he takes a sip, the slight singe on his tongue welcome. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts of past lives and lost love as he clicks on the computer screen and opens his email account. He takes another sip and stares at a message from a sender he doesn't recognize, an he can't place from any of his recent business dealings. He frowns as he clicks on the message, his coffee sloshing out of his mug as he sits it back on the table in a stupor.

_Mr. Locksley,_

_I know this message will come as quite a shock to you, but I've just learned of your existence, and I'd like to meet you if you're agreeable to this suggestion. I'm currently staying with my birth mother at her house on Piper Beach, a place I'm told you know fairly well. I just met her yesterday, and it's a bit overwhelming, as I'm certain you can understand. But she's lovely, a real fighter, and last night she told me your name and in doing so gave me the final puzzle piece to my life._

_You see, my name is Henry. I'm twenty years old._

_And I'm your son._


	4. Chapter 4

_Mr. Locksley, I know this message will come as quite a shock to you, but I’ve just learned of your existence, and I’d like to meet you if you’re agreeable to this suggestion. I’m currently staying with my birth mother at her house on Piper Beach, a place I’m told you know fairly well. I just met her yesterday, and it’s a bit overwhelming, as I’m certain you can understand. But she’s lovely, a real fighter, and last night she told me your name and in doing so gave me the final puzzle piece to my life._

_You see, my name is Henry. I’m twenty years old. And I’m your son._

Robin reads the email again, wondering if on the third reading the words will organize themselves differently. But they remain in the same order, the same meaning searing into his mind and seeping into his pores, waking him up in a manner he’d never before experienced.

_My name is Henry. I’m twenty years old. And I’m your son._

_Your son_. His son. Christ--he has a son?

His body tingles, his skin feels alive, the name Henry singeing veins and making him hot and cold at the same time. A son-his son. How long...why hadn’t...where did he...how in God’s name--?

_Piper Beach. My birth mother._

His son’s birth mother. Regina Mills. Regina--his first love, his sole love, the only woman he’s ever regretted, the only woman with whom he’d ever shared his heart. He can’t eat shrimp or drink Coke without thinking of her, has avoided the beach religiously since that summer, knowing the pull of the incoming tide would lull him back into a past from which he’d be loathe to leave. He’d kept the sand dollar she’d given him, one they’d found near their cave, the cave where they’d lost their virginity, the cave where they’d evidently conceived a child.

A son. _His_ son. Their son. Christ. Bloody, bloody Christ.

He’d left Regina at the end of that summer, hadn’t reached out to her to let her know that he and his mother had had to move in with her cousin after her cancer diagnosis, hadn’t sent her his new address because he’d been too ashamed of the fact that he’d given up his dreams and ambitions and had continued in work he’d hoped to leave behind him. She’d been accepted to Vassar. He worked in construction. He and his mother were practically penniless. She belonged to a society that would never see him as anything but the help. They were from totally different worlds, heading towards totally different futures. Why prolong something that would just break him in the end? So he’d tried to block her out of his mind and memory, had ignored regret’s sting and guilt’s ugly head, and he’d moved forward as best as he could, trudging through life with a self-imposed limp. Without entanglements. Without attachments. Telling himself over and over that he’d done Regina a favor by staying out of her life. He’d set her free to pursue bigger and better things, to find someone who could give her all that she deserved in life rather than being attached to a man who’d struggled to pay for food and his mother’s medical bills. But she’d been pregnant...with his baby...his son...a boy she’d evidently given up for adoption just after he was born. And she’d endured all of it--pregnancy, childbirth, and giving up her baby without him. He’d been an eighteen year old jerk who’d tried his best to paint himself as a martyr. And she’d been seventeen--seventeen--no more than a child herself.

How hard had that been for her? Her heart was so tender, so open to love, so deserving of deep and undying affection, yet she’d handed over a child he knew she’d cherish with every bone in her body. Her family had the means to raise and care for her baby, so if she gave him away, she’d either felt backed into a corner and feared that having a child at such a young age would hold her back, or… Or she’d been on her own and was given no choice. Had her family abandoned her? It certainly sounds like something her gorgon of a mother would have done, and her father never had the balls to stand up to her, at least according to what Regina told him.

Regina. Shit. Being with him that summer had cost her everything.

He doesn’t realize that his hands are shaking until he picks up his coffee mug and nearly spills its contents all over his kitchen table. He sets it down and rubs his hands through his hair, working off a nervous energy that’s taken control of his limbs. Henry. His son. His and Regina’s son conceived twenty-one years ago. A living, breathing human being who wants to meet him, who is with her, who knows more about his past than he does himself. And at this moment, the two missing pieces from his life were together in the very place where he’d first felt truly alive even as a new life had been created. That life is now twenty years old.

What the hell is he supposed to do?

He stands and paces the kitchen, rubbing hands over a face he’s certain has aged ten years in five minutes. His feet carry him back to his bedroom, back to his nightstand, into a drawer that holds a handful of things that are precious to him: a photograph of his mother, his grandfather’s pocket watch, a copy of his favorite high school math teacher’s letter of recommendation he’d been certain would help him be accepted into the college of his choice, and a picture of Regina on Piper Beach.

_I’m currently staying with my birth mother at her house on Piper Beach, a place I’m told you know fairly well._

Piper Beach. That place had been imprinted into his very DNA that summer. There are times he’s certain he still feels its sand between his toes and its salt in his lungs, and as he stares at her photograph, his throat thickens, thinking of all they experienced inside that cave by which she stands. How they’d shaken as they touched each other in awe, as hands first explored what mouths would later taste, how they’d given each other everything and accepted everything in return. He’d nearly come apart when he’d entered her the first time, so in awe of how it felt to be inside a woman, not knowing then that no other woman he encountered would ever feel like her. He’d loved her with a purity he’d denied everyone else since then besides his mother, and he rubs his face again, feeling the beard that hadn’t existed when he’d kissed her for the first time.

He’d loved her. But he’d left her. And she had borne his son.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying at first, but he finally sits on his bed and allows tears to pour out of him like dam unleashed. Years of self-imposed loneliness and regret collide with his living past, a past he can no longer hide from, a past he both wants and fears to face. We’ll get married once I finish college and get a job. He’d made promises that cancer had broken as if they were no sturdier than a pile of matchsticks, promises he’d sealed with his grandmother’s ring yet walked away from when life got too hard. But Regina hadn’t been able to walk away, for his broken vows had taken root inside her womb, most likely marking her as a failure in her mother’s eyes and forcing her into a decision she should have never had to have made on her own.

Would she ever be able to forgive him if he asked? Will he ever be able to forgive himself.

His bag is half-packed before he realizes what he’s doing, and he calls Tuck on his way out the door. He knows his crew can take care of things while he’s gone--they’re good people, he’s chosen well. But he stalls once he’s inside his truck, leaving the key in the ignition as he lays his forehead on the wheel and tries to breathe. He doesn’t need GPS to tell him how to get to his destination. He could hike to Piper Beach from memory and has often enough in his dreams. But two people are there now, two people who mean more than his own life, two people who have every right to hate him yet have reached out to invite him back.

Regina Mills. Henry Jones. His only love and their son. He prays to God that he won’t fuck things up royally this time.

* * *

 

 Two and half hours later, he parks one block away, afraid of parking too close to her house, afraid of encroaching into her life again, wondering why when he’s already encroached far enough to forever alter her life. He stares at the ocean, at the play of sunlight on water, at the fluidity of the horizon, at the depth of his guilt. A boy is waiting for him--no, a young man, rather, a child he should have known but never got to meet, a son he should have held at least once. He’s certain Regina held their baby before she gave him away, and his heart nearly shatters at the thought of what that did to her. If he’d been there, would things have been different? What could he have offered a wife and child at the age of nineteen besides debt, disappointment and desperate times?

He could have been there. That’s about it.

But Regina deserved at least that, and he’d stripped her of that right, as well. He rubs his face again, remembering now that he’d forgotten to shave before he jumped into his truck and took off without looking back, and he chuckles to himself as he takes a final swig of cold, gas station coffee. What sort of picture will he make for this son he’s never known? What impression must he already have of him, of a man who would leave a teenage mother alone and uncared for without a forwarding address? Had she written to him? He’s certain that she did, and he closes his eyes to sunlight that’s now too bright as he steps out of his truck and onto pavement sprinkled with sand.

_As sand through an hourglass,_ he thinks to himself, gazing out upon a landscape that shifts at the will of the tides. Did any sand from that summer remain, he wonders, hidden in crevices just out of the ocean’s reach? Perhaps in their cave, tucked away with memories too precious and pure to disturb by the present, even though his present was crafted within its walls. He looks to his right, half tempted to visit the cave before he faces the two people in this world he owes more than he can ever pay, regardless of the size of his bank account.

He owes them a life. He owes them everything.

A breeze hits him then, ruffling his shirt and hair, pushing him away from the shore to which he is bound even as it carries the scent of forever in its wake. He removes his shoes as he steps into the sand, closing his eyes again as he allows it to caress his toes. One step, then another, until the sand becomes firm and the water licks his feet. Gulls fly overhead, as do pelicans, and he watches their V-formation in fascination, half wishing he could soar with them back in time and correct what he’d forever messed up. But he can’t. He can only move forward and face those he left behind. He turns to his left and begins to walk, pausing only to roll up his pants legs until they nearly reach his knees.

They’d sneaked kisses all over this beach, had held hands and played in the surf, swam in the ocean and ridden the waves. They’d tried to have sex in the water once, only to end up being knocked over repeatedly and laughing until their sides hurt. Then they’d gone to their cave where they’d caressed and made up for lost time. _Lost time,_ he murmurs, his words carried away by the wind and surf.

Sand through an hourglass, indeed.

He spies the cottage, a reclaimed relic now brimming with life, and his heart thuds in time with the surf, making him stop to catch his breath and regroup. Are they inside, he wonders, talking, connecting, getting to know each other after his decisions tore them apart? He sees nobody at the shore, so he assumes that they must be, and he forces himself to start moving again, to keep his gaze steady and his direction marked. He will face the mess that he made of their lives. He has to. Regina and Henry deserve no less.

Kites fly further down the beach, and he imagines what it would have been like to fly kites with his son, to teach him to swim and to fish, to play frisbee and ball and read stories together at night. Did Henry have that growing up? Had he been given a father who loved him, who read to him, who took him camping and swimming and taught him how to treat a woman? As if he had any room to judge on that final matter. His hand runs through his hair as her cottage looms closer, and he swallows repeatedly, counting steps, marking off years, thinking of all the birthdays he missed, all the milestones, all the years of knowing a piece of him was living and breathing just out of his reach. He wonders what he looks like, what she looks like now, how he should greet them, what he should say? The questions keep tumbling around in his mind until everything stills into mist as he reaches the front porch and stops short.

His life. His family, or what should have been his family. They’re right through that door. And he can’t approach it for the life of him.

There’s a noise from inside, a door, perhaps, and he swallows again as he seeks the courage to move. _Just do it_ , he tells himself. _You’ve come this far, and you owe it to him, no, to them._ Henry initiated contact, and to walk away now would be the worst kind of cowardice, so he takes one more step, and then another, and then another until he’s at the front door, fist raised to knock, heart in his hands.

_For Regina_ , he murmurs. _For Henry_.

Then he takes a deep breath and knocks. Seconds tick by, and he wonders if he should knock again when the knob turns from the inside and the door swings open. His past stands before him, alive and breathing, staring at him with the same bewilderment Robin knows is splashed across his face. God, he’s taller than he’d imagined, with hair a color right in between his and Regina’s and a straightforward gaze he’d inherited from his mom. He can’t look away from him, trying his best to remember words he’d practiced in the car, words he’d repeated and repeated until they’d been burned into memory, words that have deserted him along with his dignity at the sight of a twenty year old young man.

“H-Henry? Henry Jones?”

The words tumble out with no shape or form, crashing in between them into shards of curiosity. Eyes crease, a mouth opens and closes again as the surf continues to pound behind them.

“You must be Robin.” There’s a tinge of fear in Henry’s voice, and he won’t have that, not for all the tea in China.

“I am,” he manages. “I-I got your email.” Blue locks with brown as the tide presses in, then a tentative smile breaks, a young hand extends, and contact is made that sears him forever. Only one other person has marked him physically like this, the same one he’d marked in return with his child.

“I’m so glad you came,” Henry says, shaking his head in wonder, obviously just as nervous as he is. “I wasn’t sure that you would, especially this quickly.” He feels released and bound all at once.

“Why wouldn’t you doubt me when I’ve been absent your entire life.” His chin quivers, and tears too persistent to fight break free. Then younger arms take a hold of his shoulders and guide him inside, into the very cabin Regina’s mother had forbidden him to enter even as he’d entered her womb. He’s intruding on her yet again.

“I know you didn’t know,” Henry says with a shake of his head. “About me. Regina told me that.” He’s sitting on a sofa looking at a boy he should have met twenty years ago, trying to pull himself out of the surreality of it all.

“I didn’t,” he mutters, trying his best to steady his voice and his hand. “I had no idea until this morning. God, if I’d known…” The words fracture apart before spilling out of him, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth he fully deserves.

“She tried to tell you,” Henry continues. “But she couldn’t find you. I think it’s only fair that you know that.”

He nods through his tears, trying to make out his son’s face through blurry vision.

“I assumed as much,” Robin returns. “Trust me, I hold no blame for anyone in this situation except for myself.” A dark cloud envelopes him, even as sunlight warms his neck, yet his fingers are frozen, as if his body is suspended between two realities. He hears Henry get up and walk across the room to grab some glasses and fill them with ice, and he wipes his face quickly, needing to see details, wanting to memorize everything even if it shreds him to bits.

“Water?”

He takes the glass and sips from it gratefully.

“Thank you,” Robin says. “And not just for the water.” Henry’s eyes study him, eyes that are filled with his mother’s intelligence and curiosity.

“So you’re glad I contacted you? I--we weren’t sure that you would be.” The question hovers between them as Robin breathes it in.

“I’m very glad,” he assures his son. “And also very ashamed.” Ice tinkles in the glass Henry picks up.

“You were a kid,” Henry states, taking a sip of his own water. “And you didn’t know.”

“I should have been there for you,” Robin insists. “For you and your mother. If I was old enough to father a child, I was old enough to own the responsibility.” Henry quirks his head as he sets his water down on the end table.

“You were younger than I am now. You both were.” Air rushes out of Robin’s lungs as he rubs his hand over his head.

“I know,” he replies. “And I’m sure I would have made plenty of mistakes with you. But I still should have been there, for both of you.”

“You’re here now,” Henry says. The words settle into his chest, releasing one knot as yet another forms. “God knows you didn’t have to come, but you did.”

“Of course I had to come,” Robin replies. “You’re--Christ, Henry, you’re my son.” They stare at each other, forging the beginnings of a connection that hints at redemption.

“So you’re alright with having a son?” Henry asks.

“I’m blown away,” Robin admits. “It all still seems surreal, like I’m in the middle of a dream or something, but yes. I’m more than alright with having a son. I just wish…” Emotions overpower speech, and he inhales to restore the balance. “I just wish I could have known you sooner.” Henry’s hand reaches out and lays atop his own, the contact so mesmerizing he almost cannot breathe.

“I had a good life. You don’t have to worry about that.” He’s crying again then, nodding, relieved, and more ashamed than he’s ever been in his life.

“I’m so glad,” Robin says. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t have been the one to give you that life.”

“But you did, in a way,” Henry states. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. You gave me life in the first place, you and Regina. And then she gave me a new life when she gave me up for adoption, a life I’ve never regretted, not one single day.” He wipes his face with his arm, reaching out for his water and taking a drink.

“That’s good,” Robin returns, pulling his composure back together piece by piece. “And even if I’d been there for your mother, we might have had to make the same decision. I had nothing to offer her, much less a child…” His words break off as he stares out the window at the sea. “But she shouldn’t have had to make that decision by herself. That wasn’t fair.”

“No,” Henry agrees. “It wasn’t. But maybe you can be there for her now.”

He realizes with a start that he has no idea where she is, and he looks around the small cabin, somehow knowing she’s not here at the moment.

“She’s at the grocery,” Henry answers before he asks. “And just so you know, she has no idea I contacted you.”

“Shit,” he murmurs, only to shake his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“No,” Henry interrupts. “You’re right. I was going to tell her sometime today, because I thought I had more time. She was nervous about how you’d respond to finding out about me, and I honest to God didn’t think you’d respond as quickly as you did.”

The thought of Regina seeing him out of the blue just after meeting their son sets his nerves on edge. She’s been through enough on his account. The least he can do is allow Henry to give her a proper warning that he’s come back into their lives after a twenty-one year absence.

“I should leave” Robin says, standing up quickly. “Just so she doesn’t have to see me without warning after all these years. I could go get a room somewhere close by, then you--” The sound of a car door closing interrupts him, and he gazes back at his son wide-eyed.

“I think it’s too late for that,” Henry says, looking somewhat concerned himself. “It sounds like she just got home.”

He’s frozen in time and space, everything suspended in slow motion as he looks from his son to the front door, wondering if he should hide, if he should sit down, if he should run out the side door like the guilty teenager who’d left her alone and pregnant. But his feet won’t budge, so he stands there like a condemned man begging for a pardon he doesn’t deserve. Then he hears her on the porch as his lungs tighten and his palms grow damp. He watches as the handle turns and the door swings open, then he’s looking at the woman who forever changed his life, a woman who is more beautiful than she’d been as a girl, a woman he’d put through hell and back because he’d loved her.

She sees him. Time stops. And all of the groceries clatter to the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

She can’t breathe. 

He’s there, no here, right here, right in front of her, in her house, standing with their son...just...here…in her house....How? Why?

“Robin?”

Her lips are numb as his name escapes her, traveling on a puff of air released by a shock so profound she cannot move. He’s looking at her as if she’ll shatter, and maybe she has, she just hasn’t realized it yet. 

“Regina.”

She closes her eyes as his voice trails up her body, wrapping her in talons from the past that led her to the present in which they now stand. Then she blinks her eyes open and stares back at him, taking him in, wondering what he’s thinking, afraid of thinking too much herself lest she short-circuit and collapse onto the floor.

“How?”

Neither of them have moved, their gazes fixed on each other, the air between them thick enough to keep them upright. 

“It was me.” 

Henry’s voice pulls her out of her stupor, and she shifts her focus to her newly found son, , blinking in confusion as he looks from his feet back to her. 

“I found him,” Henry continues. “Last night after you went to bed. I told you I was good at finding people, and…” He pauses, looking sheepish and somewhat ashamed. “I sent him an email.”

Facts spin about her with the ferocity of a whirlwind, throwing her off-balance as she tries to catch up. 

“An email?” she echoes, licking her lips. 

“I’m sorry,” Henry adds. “I should have told you this morning, but I had no idea that…” He cuts off and looks at Robin before taking a step in his direction. “I didn’t think he’d drop everything and just come.” 

She blinks repeatedly, staring from one face to the other, father and son, past and present, cause and effect. 

“You dropped everything?”

She isn’t at all sure that she’s actually spoken, but Robin’s face cracks open, and he hangs his head. 

“I did,” he admits with a self-depreciating shrug. “Twenty-one years too late.” 

Then he’s crying, and she’s gaping, trying to put pieces together that shouldn’t fit but do. He’s upset, he’s here, he dropped everything to see their son--his son, the child he’d given her, the son she’d given away. He’d driven here immediately because he wants to know him, to see him, the boy he’d lost because she hadn’t been able to find him.

Damn it all to hell.

The room is too hot, her skin too raw, and she needs air--fresh air, sea air, so she bolts out the front door and sprints towards the ocean, the one body of water large enough to carry away her guilt and drown a bruised conscience. She’s knee deep before she realizes that she’s sobbing, and she drops down so the waves caress her thighs, tugging on her sundress as they leave her for destinations unknown. 

Just like he had all those years ago. 

Her face is as wet as her body as the salt water from within meets what surrounds her without. It’s too much, coming face to face with her life in one room, staring regret in the eye, hearing lost chances speak for themselves. She sinks further into the sand, allowing the surf to caress her breasts, just as he had the summer that led them all back to each other right now, and she longs to fly away with the gulls, to simply spread her wings and float above self-reproach and bruised emotions. 

If only things were that easy. If only life responded to wishes.

“I’m so sorry.” 

His voice blends into the sea, but she stares straight ahead into the horizon rather than into his eyes. 

“You, God, Regina...I had no idea...I mean, I should have considered...I should have thought...fuck.” 

It’s his curse that makes her look at him, that allows her to see that he’s on his knees as well, and she can’t help but wonder if they look like sinners praying for absolution to a sea god just beyond their reach.

“I know,” she manages, swallowing the thick moisture left behind by tears. “And I did try, Robin...I…”

“I know,” he states. “Henry told me, and I have no doubt that you did your best to track me down, to let me know that...that we were going to have a baby.” 

Her tongue thickens as she feels how she felt when writing him out of desperation, as she prayed this letter wouldn’t be returned to her like the last one, as she wondered where on earth he’d gone off to and why he hadn’t thought to let her know. 

“Why?”

The word drifts out of her mouth, over her lips and into salty spray, it’s implications hitting him with the force of high tide. 

“I was ashamed.” 

She doesn’t expect that. 

“Ashamed? Of what--of what we’d done?”

He turns towards her as a wave presses them backwards, but they hold their ground as sand vanishes from beneath them.

“No, never, not that.” He looks back towards the sky, rubbing the beard that reminds her that they’ve lived lifetimes apart. “It’s just that...everything went to hell after you left that summer.”

A laugh pushes its way out of her. 

“You can say that again,” she returns, closing her mouth to avoid swallowing salt water. He hangs his head, his chest collapsing into itself, and she realizes she just delivered a blow he’s already felt. 

“You have every right to hate me,” he says, his eyes still downcast. “I don’t blame you at all. Christ, I hate myself right now.” 

Her heart starts racing until she can’t think. 

“I don’t hate you,” she manages. “I’ve never hated you, I just…” She pauses, trying to swallow, trying to breathe, trying to put into words what she’s spent a lifetime trying to outrun. “What the hell happened, Robin? Where did you go?”

The next wave is strong, and it nearly knocks her over. Then his arm is around her, lifting her out of the water and up off the sand, keeping her steady in a world that feels off-kilter. 

“My mum,” he begins once he’s sure she’s alright. “She was diagnosed with cancer right after you left.” 

Of all of the scenarios she’s imagined over the years, this has never been one of them. 

“Oh my God,” she breathes, trying to process an unknown truth. “Robin--I’m sorry.” 

He’s quiet, too quiet, and she fears the worst before he clears his throat and looks back at her fully. 

“Thank you,” he manages. “It was rough for a long time. We had to leave and move in with a cousin--medical bills, you see.” 

More pieces organize themselves in her mind, clearing a portion of her vision that’s been clouded for two decades. 

“I took on extra jobs,” he continues. “Trying to make ends meet, trying to take care of her, trying to pay medical bills. Thank God she got better, but things were touch and go for a long time.”

Waves lap at her feet, reaching just past her ankles as his words work their way inside. 

“That’s why you weren’t at your address,” she breathes, watching as he nods and dares a look at her once more. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

He swallows and stares back at the horizon into a time she knows he wishes they could step back into and refine.

“You were going to Vassar.” The last word breaks as it leaves his mouth, crumbling into ash as a sob tears its way through his body. “I thought...I thought you could do so much better, that I was doing you a favor, that I’d...that I’d only hold you back.” 

Speech deserts him and he cries without restraint, taking a step away from her and towards the sea as if the salt can cleanse him of past mistakes. She stares at his back, at his shoulders, at a head now dropped in defeat, and she dares a step toward him, just one, maybe two as her fingers reach out and make contact with his arm. 

“I had to leave Vassar,” she states, amazed by how calm her voice sounds. 

“I’m so sorry,” he returns. “God, Regina, if I could do it all again, if I could just go back and send you a fucking postcard with my new address…”

Her grip on his arm moves from gentle to firm.

“I wish you had.” 

“God, so do I.” 

Eyes lock as the next wave hits below her knee, letting her know she’s already in deeper than she realized. 

“Did they kick you out? Your parents, I mean?”

She closes her eyes to the pain of abandonment, hearing him gasp as she nods her head. 

“I moved in with an aunt in New York,” she says. “And watched my future disappear while my waistline grew.” 

He shakes his head before burying his face in his hands, unable to hold back the waves of grief on which she’s floated for years. 

“I should have been there,” he says, wiping his eyes with his arm. 

“I wish you had been. God, Robin, I needed you so much.” 

Her own damn breaks then, her grip on him tightening even more. Then his hands are on her arms, holding her up, seeking forgiveness, needing more than she is capable of giving until he embraces her with measured hesitation before pulling her fully into his chest. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers into her hair. “So very sorry.” 

Her scalp tingles, her nerves alight, then her own arms wrap around him as if he were a piece of driftwood and she a swimmer lost at sea. His tears baptize her head as hers mark his chest, an odd sort of blessing taking root as wave after wave pushes the tide forward onto new ground. 

“I’m sorry, too,” she manages. 

“What in God’s name for?” he questions, still holding on to her as if his life depended on it. A piece of her soul tears as the words make their way up her throat.

“For giving him away.” 

He’s still holding her, and she grips him even tighter, pouring a lifetime of guilt out and onto his shirt. 

“You did what had to be done,” he assures her. “You gave him his best chance, and look at how he’s turned out.” 

She’s nodding through tears, knowing he’s right but hurting all the same. 

“I know. But I missed it all.”

His palms flatten on her back as one moves to cradle her head. A wave licks at her thighs as they stand there, like a deserted plank from an old pier too stubborn to be knocked over, too damaged to be claimed by anyone but each other. 

“I know,” he whispers. “So did I. And that’s my fault.” 

“No,” she breathes, pulling back so she can look at him. “It’s our fault. I helped to create him. It wasn’t just you.” 

He closes his eyes, the pain on his face almost too much for her to take in, and she realizes that he’s the same boy she loved with everything she had back when the world had been simple. Trembling fingers reach out to touch his face, his scruff, his cheek, and he leans into her touch as if it’s the only thing on earth that can repair what’s damaged inside. 

“We can’t change the past, Robin,” she mutters. “Believe me. I’ve tried.” 

His lips press together as he nods, knowing she’s right, wishing to God that she was wrong. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again, his hand still in her hair. “I know I can’t say it enough, that it will never be enough…”

“It is,” she interrupts. “It has to be. Don’t you think?”

He looks at her as if she holds his life in her hands, just as she cradled his child in her womb years ago. 

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he whispers, his forehead nearly touching hers. 

“I don’t know what either of us deserve,” she breathes, watching as he breaks open again before she pulls him back into her arms. “But I forgive you, Robin.” 

There are no secrets left between them now.

They can’t know that he’s watching them, that he’s crying tears of his own as the two people who’d given him life try to repair what his conception and birth broke apart. They don’t realize how he sees them, as two lovers torn apart by what should have brought them together, as two halves of a whole that now miraculously includes him. 

They don’t hear as he steps out onto the porch to feel the very breeze billowing over them as they cling to each other in an odd sort of benediction. But he hopes they sense the words he whispers into the wind, words he knows they both need to hear from him more than once, words he didn’t know he’d believe and embrace until he’d met and spoken with them both. 

“I forgive you, too.”


End file.
